Harder to Breathe
by Nutsaboutremus
Summary: (DG ONLY) NEW VERSION! When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love, You'll understand what I mean when I say, there's no way we're gonna give up. Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe?


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**Harder to Breathe**

_How dare you say that my behaviour is unacceptable  
So condescending unnecessarily critical  
I have the tendency of getting very physical  
So watch your step cause if I do you'll need a miracle  
  
You drain me dry and make me wonder why I'm even here  
This Double Vision I was seeing is finally clear  
You want to stay but you know very well I want you gone  
Not fit to fin' tread the ground I'm walking on  
  
When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love  
You'll understand what I mean when I say  
There's no way we're gonna give up  
And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams  
Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe  
Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe  
  
What you are doing is screwing things up inside my head  
You should know better you never listened to a word I said  
Clutching your pillow and writhing in a naked sweat_

_Hoping somebody someday will do you like I did  
  
When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love  
You'll understand what I mean when I say  
There's no way we're gonna give up  
And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams  
Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe  
Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe  
  
Does it kill  
Does it burn  
Is it painful to learn  
That it's me that has all the control  
  
Does it thrill  
Does it sting  
When you feel what I bring  
And you wish that you had me to hold_

_-Maroon Five (Rocking band)_

* * *

In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through the cracks in the wall. It twists in between lovers asleep in their beds.

That was why Ginny overcome by a sudden shiver, snuggled closer to Draco, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder as they huddled together under the think warm blanket.

This year, December was so clear and icy the air itself seemed as if it were a bell about to be rung. Right now, in the night, the dark was blue and bluer still, a sapphire of the night.

It was so cold that tears froze before they fell and a thestral's breath could turn to ice inside its nostrils and lead to suffocation.

Ginny did not feel the cold, not now; buried in the heat of the boy she loved.

She remembered how they had gotten together – a chance occurrence that might never have occurred had she not wandered into the Astronomy tower late one chilly summer night.

It had been strangely cold, the kind of chill that drove her out of bed in search of warmth. Or perhaps it had been the cold from within.

Ginny felt like a different person ever since summer holidays, overwhelmed by a sort of hopelessness that clung to her like a damn, heavy overcoat.

It came from watching Harry decline into a state of morbid pessimism, seeing her brother struggle with the loss of his best friend the worst way possible – not by death but by self-inflicted isolation, watching her only close girl pal Hermione struggle with the onslaught of less than noble feelings for Ron and having to keep it at bay and focus on helping Harry which as far as Ginny was concerned was a fruitless mission. The only person that could help Harry was himself.

All this combined with the fact that days were constantly filled with reports of deatheater attacks, foiled attempts by Voldermort to seize several strategic wizarding locations and the constant threat on her brothers' lives was enough to drive her into a permanent sense of impending doom.

Wrapping her shawl tightly around herself, she had walked into the astronomy tower and saw him.

He was there, lying on the stone floor, completely stoned with a bottle of fire whiskey in his hand. Where had he obtained it from she would never know.

For some strange reason, from an unknown source in her soul pity sprouted out, sympathy for this young boy-man who had needed so badly to get lost in himself that he had resorted to alcohol.

She knew what that felt like, having used Tom Riddle's diary to do just that. Sure, they were on opposite spectrums of the social scale – one rich, demanding spoilt Slytherin who got everything he wanted, another poor, amiable, brave Gryffindor who made do with what she had but what bound them together was the desperate need to lose themselves.

Ginny realised this and being the open-minded girl she was, she decided to help him. Had not Dumbledore said earlier that by presenting an untied front they would have a higher chance of winning this War.

She knelt down next to him.

"Malfoy," She tapped him on his shoulder roughly.

He shook his head, muttering a few swear words that would make Fred blush.

"Malfoy, we have to get you out of here. Before Filch comes and finds you." Ginny urged, suddenly afraid of being caught in a compromising situation such as this.

If he did not rouse anytime soon, she would just have to leave him. It was getting too cold anyway. How had he been able to bare the icy winds filtering into the astronomy tower?

He suddenly sat up with a jolt. The mention of Filch must have done the trick. His eyes still seemed unnaturally glazed as he attempted to get up, stumbling on his feet.

He lost grip of the firewhiskey bottle and it fell on the floor. The sound of glass falling was as though meteors were raining from the sky. He stared at the glass shards, lying on the ground, for a moment.

Then he did something that would forever change the way Ginny saw him, in an utterly irrevocable manner. He pointed at the broken glass pieces, "My heart." He slurred.

Then he swayed a bit and Ginny reached forward, holding him by his elbow. She led him down the corridor, slowly.

He had no shame in his drunkenness, his arm draped across her shoulder ungracefully as they made their way down the hallway.

The quiet purr of Mrs. Norris made Ginny quicken her pace. Realising that the Syltherin common room was a long way down, she turned a corner and sure enough a door appeared in the wall – the answer to her silent prayers – the Room of Requirement.

As she opened the door, she dragged Draco in, shutting the door behind her. There was a narrow bed in the room, covered with a beige blanket, standing in the center. There was even a sink along one wall – for vomiting Ginny presumed.

Draco lay on the bed, going to sleep almost instantly. Ginny removed his shoes and sat on a chair by the bed. She did not want to leave him then, all alone and besides she could not go back out in the hallways – Filch would be on the prowl.

Draco's feet were white and smooth. His stomach was concave and made a slight hollow under his belt. One of the legs of his trousers had ridden up beneath his robes to expose an inch of skin above his sock.

Ginny thought he was the most beautiful person she had ever seen. She did not understand why she had not realised it all this while – with his blonde white hair falling over his forehead, his sculptured face.

After some time, she put a finger to the skin at his chin. She traced his chiselled jaw and he twitched in his sleep.

She put her palm on the place where his belly dipped. The heat of his skin through his shirt surprised her, as though he were running a temperature.

Filled with an inane urge to get closer to this seemingly kindred spirit, she slipped into the bed and lay beside him.

He turned on his side, facing her. It was dark in the room but she could see his face, feel his breath on her skin.

"You brought me here." He said.

"Yes."

"I don't remember."

"No, I know you don't."

"I drank too much."

"I know."

"Who are you?" He asked, squinting at her face.

"Ginerva...Weasley."

He turned on his back, away from her, almost instantly, like a reflex action. She shifted slightly in the bed with the intentions of getting up and leaving.

Draco feeling the shift, quickly turned around, lifting his arm from his eyes, looking at her, "Don't go." He said.

When he rolled towards her, he unfastened one button of her blouse, as though by that gesture he would prevent her from leaving. He kissed the bare space he had made.

"Are you with anyone?"

"No." She could have lied, but she did not want to.

She put her fingers on his face, cupping his jaw. He unfastened all the buttons. He opened her blouse and laid the cloth against her arms.

She could not understand what was happening except how hot she was inside. His fingers were burning her up when he reached under her blouse; he seemed to be going right through her but she did not want him to stop.

He kissed her from her neck to her stomach. Dry lips. Light kisses. He rolled her beneath him pulling her blouse down below her shoulders. He encircled her, pressing his palms into her back.

Her arms were pinned beneath his and she felt his breath on her neck. He pushed himself hard against her thigh. She arched her head back, letting go, letting this happen to her, to them and she felt his body stretch with hers.

She felt his tongue at the edge of her lips, as he finally kissed her with surprising tenderness. He knew how to kiss her, he really did; He touched her in ways that made her feel like crying and caused her to want even more.

He definitely had the ability to make a girl lose her reason completely, because there she was making love with the boy she had been taught to hate and stay away from for most of her life.

Sometime later that night, she was awakened by a ragged moan.

Draco, naked, was sitting on the edge of the bed, the heels of his hands digging angrily into his eyes sockets. She tried to pull hands away before he injured himself.

He fell back on the bed.

"Lumos." She lit up her wand.

"What is it?" She asked. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," He whispered, "It'll pass."

His strong, hard jaw was clenched and his face had gone an even paler, a sickly white. Ginny knew it could not be a simple hangover. He had to be ill.

He raised his head off the pillow and looked at her. He seemed not to be able to see her. There was something wrong with his right eye.

"This will pass," He said, "It's just a headache."

"What can I do for you?" Ginny asked, thoroughly earnest in her simple request. She had never seen such agony on anyone's face before.

"Don't go," he whispered, "Promise me you won't go." He reached for her hand, catching her wrist. He gripped her so tightly; he raised welts on her skin.

She conjured him an icepack before lying back down next to him. She fell asleep while he waited out the pain.

Some hours later, he rolled over, facing her, taking her hand. His colour had returned and she could see that the headache was gone.

"There's something I want to tell you." He said.

He leaned away from here, rummaging for something among the robes on the floor. He pulled out his wand, lighting it up.

He sat up, his toned chest visible in the glow of the light emanating from the wand, his hand trembling as he thrust her arm out at her.

With his other hand, her placed her fingers on the visible mark on his forearm. She knew what it was even before he told her.

Instead of fear, she felt desire. She traced the bumpy curves that made up the Dark Mark as she was meant to do.

He shivered slightly at her touch, staring at her face with an intensity that enthralled her – no boy had even looked at her like that.

"I'm a Deatheater."

She fell in love with him then. She would only realise it in retrospect.

She strained up, to kiss him. There was nothing shy or tentative about the way she kissed him. As soon as she kissed him like that, Draco knew how far she was gone.

He did not have to learn legillimency to divine that. It was the way she leaned her head back, it was the way she closed her eyes.

Ginny thought she was so clever, keeping all her secrets safe but in one single instant she had revealed every one.

After that, she went to the Slytherin boys' dorm every night and sometimes she even wondered how they managed to keep it a secret. Silencing charms could only work for so long.

Sometimes they would do it with their clothes on, hurried and silent but most of the time he took his time with her, tasting every inch of her painstakingly until she was so overcome with desire she thought she would faint.

That winter they grew even more daring and Ginny sometimes did not get back to her own bed until six or seven.

By then the castle was already growing light and she had to run up to flight of stairs, down the hallway, into the common room, to her dorm or be found out.

Whenever her roommates wondered about the noises in the early morning, Ginny blamed the ghosts wandering around or the house elves. Or perhaps it was the wind, Draco would tell his roommates – that would explain the moaning Blaise heard.

They were shameless; they did it three times at night and there were days when Ginny was so exhausted she would fall asleep in class. At noon, she was often so tired she would put her head on the table in the Grand Hall and miss lunch completely.

Luna was completely puzzled when Ginny would sneak into her Ravenclaw dormitory, come up to her room to visit, only to curl up at the foot of the bed where she would sleep for hours.

Of course it was Hermione who finally figured it out.

"I don't believe it," She said after taking a good look at the dreamy expression on Ginny's face, "You're doing it with Malfoy aren't you? Now I know you're insane."

Hermione went with Ginny to Madam Pomfrey for birth control potion, lying blatantly that it was for a friend of theirs who was addicted to doing it.

Madam Pomfrey had been mortified and given it to them without further questioning.

Hermione promised not to tell anyone about it and Hermione kept a secret as well as a secret keeper under the Fidelus Charm.

"I wish it were anyone but him," Hermione had said, "I wish you weren't so stupid."

They were walking towards the castle from Hagrid's Hut after visiting him during lunch break.

Draco had been standing with the Slytherins waiting for their lesson to start, outside the Greenhouse when Ginny had walked by.

His eyes had not left her, not once, tracking every single movement of hers till she was out of sight. Ginny knew this, from the way the hairs at the nape of her neck rose.

"Well maybe love is blind." Ginny said archly.

"Maybe you are too."

To this day, Hermione did not understand why Ginny fell in love with Draco.

She had always demanded hard evidence and documentation, even though she privately knew that there was no explanation for something such as love, considering what grief it could bring.

Ginny knew this as she wound her arm around his waist. Draco stirred, opening one eye slightly and relaxing when no blinding sunlight hit him.

Thank Merlin, it was still dark – that meant more time with this red haired vixen of a woman beside him.

He nuzzled her neck and she breathed in deeply. Her toes curled against the insides of his calf and he felt the tiny hairs on his legs rise with desire.

Everything about them was so intense Draco was often surprised, after long nights of lovemaking that he had not burst into flames or that Hogwarts was not lying in ashes, burnt by the heat they generated together.

A glance at each other was enough to make the air around them sizzle with desire, longing, lust and of course sublime love, so powerful in its connection and so much bigger than the both of them.

Even in the dearth cold of the winter, he was hot all the time. He was so overheated; the cuffs of his shirts were singed. He was hard constantly. He was so affected by her that every part of him wanted her.

He was so intense about Ginerva that when she sat down at the Gryffindor table way across from him in the Great Hall at breakfast, the butter in the dish in front of him would melt, the way it did when love was under a roof.

Even the sticks of butter at the neighbouring Ravenclaw table would melt and anyone who wanted some would have to pour it on a piece of toast or measure it out with a tablespoon.

His wanting was so strong that Ginny herself felt it, like bands of electricity shaking up the air around him. That was the thing that was what was making him nervous – when you want someone you were in his or her power.

He would know after all, having been in the Dark Lord's power for less than a year now- his headaches were all part of Dark Lord trying to break through his mental barriers, barriers Snape had trained him to put up to protect himself.

It was a clever trick so that the Dark Lord would not know what he was doing, where he was and what he was really thinking.

He was not expected to attend meetings since he was in Hogwarts but he was expected to report to Lestrange about what was going on at Hogwarts.

He did that faithfully. He had no choice. He was deatheater, bound by the oath he had taken last summer, bound by the duty of a son to his father who was in Azkaban, forced to take his father's place.

Draco suspected Snape had told Dumbledore about his induction into the Dark Lord's circle but the old professor seemed to want to do nothing about it.

So far he had not had to kill anyone but Draco feared that trouble would start during Christmas break. Lestrange had already demanded he return home for the holidays.

There could be only one reason for this – to help carry out an attack.

* * *

It was the night after Christmas. Ginny was curled up on the couch by the fireplace, seemingly restless and unable to sleep. Maybe it was the lack of Draco's presence.

He had to go home for the holidays, something that he was not very agreeable to since he suspected he would have to go on some deatheater mission as part of the initiation process.

He would have to kill – be it now or later. It was something Ginny had come to terms with. It just made her love him more – his endless struggle with darkness.

Even when he tormented her brother, or Harry or even called Hermione a mudblood, she could not stop loving him; she could not even begin to hate him.

She attempted to tell him off, but she felt sorry for him, knew this his way of covering up his innermost insecurities and anguish.

This was a major point of contention between them - his horribly condescending behaviour towards her brother and her friends.

She gazed at the dying embers of the light. Everyone else had retired to bed.

A tapping on the glass window jolted her out of her reverie. It was an owl. She unfurled the note tied to the owl's leg and recognised the cursive handwriting instantly.

_Ginerva_

_Meet me at the astronomy tower at half past eleven_

_Draco_

When she met him close to midnight, he had blood on his hands. He did not seem to notice the blood dripping onto the stone floor and that scared Ginny the most.

"Oh No." Ginny murmured, walking towards him quickly.

If that was what love did, they had best give it another name. Draco pulled her towards him, with all the blood on his hands.

Ginny wanted to ask him if he was all right but they were so far from that, she did not bother.

Her attention was riveted on the way the blood was spreading. It was pooling beneath their feet as the cold winter draft filtered into the place.

She took her wand out of her robes, even though she could not stop shaking.

Draco noticed her trembling hands as she attempted to perform a simple healing charm on his wounds. There was too much blood and his blood seemed too hot for such a chilly night.

"It's all right." He murmured, consolingly.

Maybe it was terror or maybe regret but Ginny could not stop trembling. She was shaking so hard, her teeth were chattering.

Draco pulled her towards himself, his hand now a lot less painful and only scars where the wounds were.

Ginny did not say a word, allowing him to keep her warm with his body heat, running his healed hand down her face. It only made her shudder more. For the first time, she wondered if Draco was more than she could handle.

That night, they made love with a ragged edge, as though playing out the rest of his pent up anger with open mouths and small bites, locked thighs and pinned wrists.

Then as the voracious momentum of the night changed, he pulled her tenderly into his arms and began to cry – tears dripping off his jaw in rivulets as he cried so quietly and silently it broke Ginny's heart.

"I'll never hurt you, y'know." He murmured softly, breathing in deeply at the same time.

"I would rather hurt myself than hurt you," Draco said, " I never want to hurt you."

"I know that." Ginny whispered into his hair.

"I just want to protect you, make everything better for you, save the world for you…not kill..never kill..but I killed, Ginerva..I killed a man tonight…"

Ginny rested her head against his chest, hearing the blood move in and out of his heart. She wrapped her arms around his waist, stroking his back with her fingers. He had his heart, he had his love for her and that was all that mattered.

"I can't even protect you, I can't even do that and it frustrates me to NO BLOODY END!!!" Draco raised his voice, moving away from her.

"Shhhh." She murmured, "The other boys will wake up." She reminded him.

He ignored her. He got up from the bed and in one swift movement; he slammed his fist at the wall.

"Draco.." She whispered, suddenly very terrified.

He did not seem to hear her, his gray eyes turning an intense dark colour, not like the molten silver they became whenever he made love to her.

Ginny had never felt so frightened before. Maybe Hermione had been right. Maybe this was a huge mistake. Maybe Draco was too much for anyone, least of all her.

"I don't think I can do this." Those were her last words before she took off from his room, out through the secret passageway into the corridor.

She barely looked as if she was crying. Her eyes white, her freckled face strangely pale.

He was the one who was hurt.

A strange breathlessness seized him. He had to make her feel this pain. This exact same pain she was making him feel.  
  
He wanted to make her burn and sting from this pain that was making it so hard for him to breathe.  
  
She would pay. He would make her cry into her pillow like a little girl after a nightmare.

He paced the corridors, like a predator stalking his prey, hunting her down.  
  
Recollecting the way he tasted all her sweet kisses, staring into those chocolate dark eyes, all those time they spent in each other's passionate embrace.  
  
The more he plotted revenge, the more desperately he seemed to need her, hold her, run his hands through that coppery red hair, nipping at her soft tender pink lips that were puffy with arousal from all his kisses.

Finally he found her all alone.

He had wanted to hurt her, make her pay, scar her the way she had scarred him and his heart but he could not.

He stopped breathing the moment he touched her.

He caught her by complete surprise, backing her insistently into the alleyway behind one of the Greenhouses. Perhaps she made a small and ineffectual protest but Draco was not listening.

He leaned all of his weight against her, and put his tongue inside her ear. That gesture made her shiver, and she turned her head.

He realized then that she had wanted him almost as much as he, her.

That realization confounded him. He put his mouth on the side of her neck, licking the skin in long strokes.

His hands pulled at her hair, pulling back her head as he devoured her and she let him, wanting him.

"Why?" He murmured against her lips, the cold bitter winter wind biting them, just like the pain in his chest, turning her nose pink and her freckled cheeks a rosy pink.

She shook her head.

"We're never going to give up, Ginerva, never." He murmured.

She nodded.

For a moment it felt as if he, Draco, was the one in control but the look in those molten brown eyes, pulsating with desire made him feel otherwise.

Ginny knew that in that posture he would come – to show her he had become helpless before her, that she was an alchemist. He would make it an offering of the incontinence of his love.

Suddenly she remembered what it felt like to feel love – it was this very emotion Draco was pouring into her through his kisses and touche. And she could not do without it. Had been living half a life without it.

She understood his words. Finally.

They were there for each other whenever it got harder to breathe.

**THE END.**

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A/n Do review..decided to write this fic after hearing the song above by Maroon 5..Llove that song btw


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